Technically, to paraphrase these lines from Eliot's "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," you don't really need to know what the lines mean, or
to interpret them. A paraphrase is just a putting in your own words what the writer
writes, not an interpretation of what the writer writes. I'll still explain the lines
for you, though, and it does seem that your assignment is to somehow incorporate
interpretation into your paraphrase.
The lines are an
allusion to the sirens of Greek myth. The sirens would lure passing sailors down into
their water caves with their songs, in the process putting them under a spell. Once the
sailors were in their caves, the sirens would stop singing, break the spell, and thereby
drown the sailors. The mermaids mentioned three stanzas earlier are an allusion to the
sirens, also.
Some commentators interpret these lines as
applying to the speaker daydreaming, then being awakened when someone talks to
him.
Either way, literally, "drown" refers to drowning by
water. Figuratively, it may refer to being awakened out of the reverie of a
daydream.
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